The Second World War (135 page)

Slim wasted no time in pushing south along the Irrawaddy Valley towards Rangoon, in a race to reach it before the rains came. Mountbatten, meanwhile, organized Operation Dracula, an amphibious and airborne assault for early May using the British XV Corps from the Arakan. The monsoon arrived two weeks early, stopping Slim’s forces sixty-five kilometres short of their objective. On 3 May, Rangoon was taken by XV Corps assisted by the Burmese Independent Army, which had changed sides to join the Allies. Kimura’s forces had no alternative but to retreat into Thailand. The remnants of the Japanese 28th Army, now cut off behind Allied lines in the Arakan, attempted to break out to the east across the River Sittang. But the British knew of their plans. When the Japanese reached the river, they were ambushed and massacred by the 17th Indian Division. Only 6,000 men out of 17,000 escaped.

As far as the Japanese command was concerned, the Ichig
Offensive had achieved its objectives. Japanese troops had inflicted half a million casualties on the Nationalist armies and forced them to withdraw from eight provinces, with a combined population of more than 100 million people. Yet it also represented a triumph for the Communists. The Nationalists had lost not only more food-producing areas, but also a large part of their manpower reserve for conscription. However much they hated the Japanese, this must have come as a relief to the local inhabitants. As General Wedemeyer observed: ‘
Conscription comes
to the Chinese peasant like famine and flood, only more regularly.’

After the Ichig
Offensive had destroyed the thirteen US airfields, two new American air bases were built at Lao-ho-k’ou (300 kilometres northwest of Hankow) and Chih-kiang (250 kilometres west of Heng-yang). In April 1945, the Japanese advanced with 60,000 men from the Twelfth Army and destroyed the airfield at Lao-ho-k’ou, but an attack by their Twentieth Army on the base at Chih-kiang was less successful. Five well-equipped Nationalist Chinese divisions, part of the modernization plan by General Wedemeyer, with another fifteen partly modernized formations, were diverted to defend Chih-kiang. On 25 April, supported by 200 aircraft, they smashed the 50,000-strong Japanese force in the last major engagement of the Sino-Japanese War. It demonstrated that with proper training and equipment, and above all food, the Nationalist divisions could take on the Japanese effectively.

Japanese forces in China and Manchuria had already been gradually reduced by transfers to the Philippines. Then Imperial General Headquarters felt obliged to divert troops from the China Expeditionary Army to defend Okinawa. The 62nd Division, which took part in the Ichig
Offensive, had already been transferred there to defend the city of Shuri.

Japan’s other priority of joining up with its forces in Indochina had also been achieved. In January 1945, when their divisions from China crossed the border, Japanese senior officers in Indochina had been shocked by their condition. The men of the
37th Division
had long hair and beards, their uniforms were in tatters and few retained any badges of rank. They were incorporated into the newly constituted 38th Army to fight in northern Tonkin against the guerrillas of Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh’s men had greatly assisted the Allies with intelligence and the return of downed air-crew, as had Thai groups provided with radios and weapons parachuted in from India by SOE and the OSS.

On 12 January, Halsey’s Third Fleet reached Indochinese waters to strike at two Japanese battleship-carriers, the
Hyuga
and the
Ise
, in Camranh Bay. This roving sortie in the South China Sea was Halsey’s swansong before he handed over command to Admiral Spruance. The two Japanese
warships had in fact left for Singapore after American submarines had sunk their tankers, but aircraft from Halsey’s thirteen fleet carriers sank a light cruiser, eleven small warships, thirteen cargo ships and ten tankers, as well as the French cruiser
Lamotte-Picquet
, which had been disarmed by the Japanese. While they were in the area, the navy flyers shot up airfields round Saigon, destroying Japanese aircraft on the ground and fuel dumps.

On 9 March, the Japanese swept aside the Vichy administration of Admiral Decoux and disarmed French forces, some of whom resisted, especially in the north. Gaullist agents as well as the OSS had been working on French officers, who were already keen to change sides. Japanese forces proceeded to launch the Meig
Offensive against French colonial troops holding strongpoints, such as Liangshan fort with a garrison of 7,000 men.

The Japanese commanders in
Indochina
intended to send the half-million tons of stockpiled rice back to Japan and to other Japanese garrisons, but the American blockade and the shortage of shipping made this impossible. While a part of the stockpile rotted, the rest was seized in November 1945 by Chinese Nationalist troops, who had been sent to disarm Japanese forces, and they took it back to China. For many Indochinese, their experience of famine during this period was even worse than both the war of independence against the French and the Vietnam War.

The first information for bombing targets in Japan was provided by Thai diplomats based in Tokyo who passed it on through the Thai resistance to the OSS. By December 1944, the air bases on Guam, Tinian and Saipan were in operation. Using the great advantages which the Mariana Islands offered over the China airfields, all B-29 Superfortress operations were gradually concentrated there under the command of Major General Curtis E. LeMay. Yet bomber losses mounted, partly from fighters rising to intercept them from intervening islands, especially Iwo Jima. Imperial Japanese
Navy fighter pilots
at dispersal on Kyushu played bridge as they waited to be scrambled to attack Superfortresses high overhead on their way to Tokyo. Their passion for the game was a bizarre legacy from the days when the Imperial Japanese Navy wanted to ape the Royal Navy.

The American command decided to invade Iwo Jima with its airfield from which Japanese fighters operated against the bombers and the bases on the Marianas. Once seized, it could provide an emergency landing strip for stricken aircraft.

On 9 March, the same day as the Japanese removed the French administration in Indochina, LeMay’s Twenty-First Bomber Command launched its first major incendiary attack on Tokyo. Just over a month before, the B-29s had made their second experiment using napalm bombs. The factory district in Kobe had been virtually burned to the ground. LeMay had been
aware of the destructive potential of incendiary attacks since the devastating B-29 raid on Hankow at the beginning of the winter.

The 334 Superfortresses carpet-bombed Tokyo, sparing neither residential nor industrial zones. More than a quarter of a million buildings went up in flames spread by strong winds. Houses made of wood and paper caught fire in seconds. Altogether 83,000 people died and another 41,000 were severely injured, a far greater toll than when the second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki five months later.

General MacArthur opposed the area bombing of Tokyo, but American hearts had been hardened by the kamikaze campaign against US ships. LeMay, however, did not answer to MacArthur, and his only concession was to drop leaflets warning Japanese civilians to leave all towns and cities with any industry. LeMay was determined to carry on until all the major manufacturing centres of Japan were burned out. Bizarrely, the USAAF still tried to claim that these area incendiary attacks by night constituted
‘precision’ bombing
. Coastal shipping between the home islands was also brought to a virtual halt by the dropping of mines in and around the Inland Sea.

Bomber crews in the early part of the campaign had been shaken by their losses. They started to calculate their odds on surviving a thirty-five-mission tour. One came up with the personal mantra: ‘
Stay Alive in ’45
’. But the destruction of aircraft factories and the losses of Japanese fighters, most of which had been diverted to kamikaze attacks against the US Navy, soon meant that they could roam over Japanese air space with comparatively little danger.

Iwo Jima, although only seven kilometres long, was revealed by air reconnaissance to be a tough objective. LeMay needed to reassure Admiral Spruance that it was absolutely necessary to take it for his bomber offensive against Japan. The large island of Okinawa would be invaded six weeks later.

The Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima were commanded by Lieutenant General Kuribayashi Tadamichi, a sophisticated and intelligent cavalry-man. He had no illusions about the final outcome of the battle, but he had prepared his positions to prolong it for as long as possible. Once again this meant constructing cave and tunnel networks as well as bunkers which were made out of a concrete which mixed cement with volcanic shingle. Despite the small size of the island, the tunnels stretched for twenty-five kilometres. Once the small civilian population on the island had been evacuated, reinforcements arrived bringing his strength to 21,000 soldiers and marines. His men swore to kill at least ten Americans before being killed themselves.

The US air force bombed Iwo Jima from the Marianas for seventy-six days. Then, at dawn on 16 February, the Japanese saw from their bunkers and caves that the invasion fleet had arrived during the night. The naval task force of eight battleships, twelve escort carriers, nineteen cruisers and forty-four destroyers anchored offshore began to bombard the island, map square by map square. But instead of the ten days which Marine commanders had requested, Admiral Spruance reduced the softening-up operation to three days. Considering the tonnage of bombs and shells hurled at the island, damage to the defences was minimal. The only exception was when Japanese batteries opened up prematurely at some rocket-launching landing craft, which their commander assumed to be the first wave of the invasion. As soon as they revealed their positions, the battleships’ heavy guns traversed on to them. But when the amphibious assault began on 19 February, most of Kuribayashi’s artillery was still untouched.

The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed in the first wave on the southeastern shore, and were followed by the 3rd Marine Division. The beaches of soft volcanic sand were so steep that the heavily laden marines in their camouflage helmets struggled up them with difficulty. Japanese gunfire intensified, with huge mortars of 320mm dropping their bombs on the landing area. Wounded men brought back to the beach were often killed before they could be evacuated to one of the ships. Bodies were mangled and blown apart in the most terrible way.